{"id":28562,"date":"2026-07-13T15:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28562"},"modified":"2026-10-21T11:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:51:50","slug":"why-the-us-economy-stays-strong-even-when-its-policies-shock-the-rest-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/why-the-us-economy-stays-strong-even-when-its-policies-shock-the-rest-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the US economy stays strong even when its policies shock the rest of the world"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The US economy is\u00a0continuing to grow faster and generate more new jobs than Europe. Annual national income growth over the past five years has averaged 3.3% in the US against 2.6% in the EU. In the first quarter of 2026, the EU\u2019s GDP was just 0.7% higher than a year before, while that of the US was up 2.6% on comparable measures, <em>says Alan Shipman, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>These figures defy the\u00a0widespread predictions that\u00a0the US would lose its growth advantage after its government imposed a global trade tariff regime in 2025 and, one year later, started a war with Iran. Economists see several factors behind the resilience of the\u00a0US economy.<\/p>\n<p>The US runs consistently\u00a0wider budget deficits\u00a0than the EU, UK or China. By spending more than it collects in tax, the US government creates more income for the people it employs and the businesses it buys from. This extra income in theory boosts demand in the economy, pushing output growth higher and reducing unemployment.<\/p>\n<p>Most European governments also run budget deficits. The\u00a0average budget deficit\u00a0of EU countries in 2025, for example, was 3.1% of GDP. But the US deficit, at 5.8% of GDP that same year, is giving a much stronger stimulus.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-the-us-economy-stays-strong-even-when-its-policies-shock-the-rest-of-the-world-285979\">Read the full article available by clicking on this link on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Main Image: picture of the US flag with rolled up notes lying on it. Credit: www.kaboompics.com on Pexels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US economy is\u00a0continuing to grow faster and generate more new jobs than Europe. Annual national income growth over the past five years has averaged 3.3% in the US against 2.6% in the EU. In the first quarter of 2026, the EU\u2019s GDP was just 0.7% higher than a year before, while that of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":28563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15],"tags":[860,1525,1640,2200],"class_list":["post-28562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","category-society-politics","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28562"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31024,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28562\/revisions\/31024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}